Owners of second homes in Wales are having to sell up. That’s no disaster: it’s a godsend | Will Hayward
www.theguardian.com
Council tax hikes on holiday homes aren’t ‘anti-English’ or detrimental to tourism. This is about preserving embattled communities, says Guardian columnist Will Hayward

geteilt von: https://sh.itjust.works/post/38301389

To try to tackle this, the Welsh Labour government, alongside Plaid Cymru, introduced measures to curb second-home ownership. This included giving councils the ability to push council tax on second homes to 300% the usual rate. They also closed a loophole whereby second-home owners could register as a business in order to pay the much lower business rates.

Gwynedd council used these powers to hike council tax to 150% in April 2023. By the end of 2024, house prices had fallen by 12.4% as second-home owners tried to sell up. In Pembrokeshire, house prices fell by 8.9% after the council increased the council tax to 200% on second homes (though this was reduced to 150% recently).

  • finitebanjo@lemmy.worldEnglish
    55·
    6 hours ago

    Wow, look at that, turns out legislative action representing the people’s best interests has been proven infinitely more effective than empowering a dictator to execute everyone who initially refuses to redistribute.

  • workerONE@lemmy.worldEnglish
    18·
    5 hours ago

    It’s 150% of the old tax rate, not 150% of the value of the home, in case anyone’s wondering.

  • bizarroland@fedia.io
    44·
    6 hours ago

    I’ve been saying that for a while that secondary residences should lose all tax benefits and should also have additional tax penalties applied to them as long as there is a housing crisis.

    Like a second house should cost you double, and if you get a third, then the second and third should cost you triple, and so on and so forth, so that having multiple homes would be a sign of wealth and not an investment practice.

    You roll that out with a gradual phase in and you would solve the housing crisis in like 7 to 10 years.

    • dylanmorgan@slrpnk.netEnglish
      3·
      2 hours ago

      The penalties should be higher for short term rental properties-if it’s listed on Airbnb or VRBO or similar, taxes double.

    • BakerBagel@midwest.socialEnglish
      6·
      4 hours ago

      Yeah government needs to start ratcheting down on landlords. Tax rental properties as commercial businesses, as well as taxing rental income at a higher rate. If a landlord can’t afford that anymore, then they sell the property and get a real job.

    • dumples@midwest.socialEnglish
      92·
      5 hours ago

      I agree there needs to be some kind of exponentially growing tax rate for multiple houses. It might kick in after two houses since a single shared vacation home between a family should be fairly affordable.

      That being said its basically impossible to get a vacation home now. No one should have 3+ homes without paying much much more.